Hjaltland
Hjaltland municipality is a small municipality, as is the westermost municipality in Norvegia. It's capital is Haraldsvik, a small fishing village lying south at the peninsula. The rest of the municipality is consentrated around agriculture. Most of the villages have grown up around large farms. Nature The landscape is quite flat, with small hilltops, shaped by the wind, the sea and glaciers. The area can be attacked by rough winds and storms in the autumn and winter, but this happens very rarely, and the harbour of Haraldsvik is safe because of it's position. Some places you will find some small forests, although these are quite small. The forest north of Haraldsvik is protected by law so it cannot be removed; a removal of the forest would make the waters outside Haraldsvik more troubled because of the winds from west. Places Haraldsvik Haraldsvik is the largest town (or village) in Hjaltland, and the local administration is located here. The town itself is located south at the peninsula of Hjaltland, in the bay with the same name. A large part of the total population of Hjaltland lives in Haraldsvik, but most of the local facilities are actually located in Kirkeby. However, you will find the central police station, the ferry port, restaurants and key industry in Haraldsvik. The name comes from the Scandinavian name of Harald (Harold) and the Norwegian name of bay, vik, so the name means Harold's bay. This referes to a local farmer called Harald Einarsson in the viking ages, who built his farm there. However, the settlement of Haraldsvik may be older than that, so the exact year of founding is unknown. Kirkeby Kirkeby is the second oldest village in Hjaltland, and also the second largest one. The place got it's name from the local church, the only church in Hjaltland. However, the name seems to refer to a church older than the current one, since the place Kyrkjabý is known from texts older than the current church, which is bult sometime in the 18th century. Archeologists' guess is that the village was founded during the 12th century, and that the village has remained the religious seat of Hjaltland forward to modern time. Unlike the other villages in Hjaltland, Kirkeby seems to has grown up as a center of trade and religion, not a farm. Nygård Nygård is the third largest village, but one of the newest ones. Nygård was etablished as a new farm in 1698, and soon more houses grew up arbound it, as the farm needed more manpower to work at the farm's growing fields. Nygård is the northernmost village, lying north of Aunet and Kirkeby, far from Haraldsvik. Nygård grew rapidly in the 19th century, so the farmer there decided to let two families build a smaller farm further south, so the families could expand Nygård's fields from there. The place called Holtet was founded, but this burned down to the ground during a winter night in 1867, where the two families got out from the burning houses, and they soon had to move to Haraldsvik. Aunet Aunet is really one of the oldest places in Hjaltland. Since this place only consists of one farm and two smaller homes, it can hardly be called a village, but rather just a place. The first name of the farm is unknown, as the people there died during the Black Death, the deadly illness which killed a high percent of the European and Asian population in the 1340's and 1350's. The farm naturally became abandoned, so the farm was called Aunet, which comes from the Norwegian word of aude or øde: empty/''abandoned''. Aunet houses a small, municipal power station. Stykket Stykket was given as a piece of land (which gives the place it's name) to some of the farm workers at Aunet, like Nygård did with Holtet. Unlike Holtet, Stykket didn't burn down after a few years, but is one of the most attractive places to live in Hjaltland today, mostly because of it's magnificent view over the western tip of Hjaltland. Stykket is today larger than Aunet, and has nothing to do with that farm anymore. Stykket can get harsh winds from west sometimes, and therefore the place was considered as a cheap piece of land to give away for the farmer at Aunet. The last piece of Stykket that was controlled by Aunet was bought by one of the citizens of Stykket in 1959. Category:Norvegia